Heritage Action for America
| Heritage Action for America | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Washington, D.C. |
| Type: | 501(c)(4) |
| Year founded: | 2010 |
| Website: | Official website |
| Connections | |
| Heritage Foundation | |
Heritage Action for America is the 501(c)(4) sister organization to the Heritage Foundation. Heritage Action for America's website describes its mission as "to fight for conservative policies in Washington, D.C. and in state capitals across the country."[1]
Background
In 2010, the Heritage Foundation launched Heritage Action for America, a group that seeks to promote the public policy agenda recommended by the Heritage Foundation. According to its article introducing the project, "Heritage Action for America will be the heat, harnessing grassroots energy to increase the pressure on Members of Congress to embrace The Heritage Foundation’s policy recommendations." Neither group gets involved in elections as its primary focus is on issue advocacy.[2]
Leadership
As of August 2025, Heritage Action listed the following individuals as members of their staff:
- Tiffany Justice, executive vice president
The organization's 2023 filings with the Internal Revenue Service listed the following officers and board members:
- Kevin Roberts, president
- Jessica Anderson, executive director
- Ryan Walker, executive vice president
- Ian Artinger, treasurer
- Sean Fieler, board member
- Jerry Grossman, board member
- Rebekah Mercer, board member
- Nersi Nazari, board member
Work and activities
Legislative and policy work
Heritage Action Scorecard
One of the main ways Heritage Action for America seeks to advance conservative policy is through its conservative scorecard, called the Heritage Action Scorecard, which measures the extent to which lawmakers vote in line with Heritage's stated conservative public policy priorities. According to its website: "The Heritage Action Scorecard measures votes and co-sponsorships to show how conservative Members of Congress are."[3]
The organization "identifies upcoming legislative fights and the Heritage Foundation outlines the conservative policy positions," recommends votes for or against identified priorities, and updates the scorecard weekly while Congress is in session to "help conservatives hold their Members of Congress accountable."[3]
Sentinel Program
Heritage Action operates the Sentinel program. According to its website, the Sentinel program is "a grassroots army of committed conservative activists who are the front line against the liberal agenda."[4]
Anyone may apply to join the program and members receive weekly legislative updates, activist training and resources, and access to an online community.[4]
Policy positions
Heritage Action for America is primarily an advocacy organization for the Heritage Foundation. Therefore, the two organizations share overlapping policy agendas, with Heritage Action advocating solutions drawn up by the Foundation. Heritage Foundation lists its main issues on its website. Click here to access a list of those issues and to learn about the Heritage Foundation's positions.
As of August 2025, the following was a list and an abbreviated summary of the organization's position of issues for which Heritage Action for America provided an issue toolkit:
- FY2025 Government Funding Deadline: "With President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House, spending bills are conservatives’ best opportunity to rein in woke and weaponized government. ... Conservatives have an opportunity with the upcoming spending deadline to overturn the Biden-Harris administration’s woke policies under a new presidential administration, and prevent increased government spending that will only further drive up inflation and increase the pain Americans are feeling in their pocketbooks."[5]
- The Secure the Border Act: Heritage Action for America advocated for passing the Secure the Border Act, which, according to their website, "was a combination of separate border security bills debated and passed out of key committees including the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee. The House Judiciary components include ending asylum fraud, closing immigration loopholes, mandating E-Verify to ensure legal employment, and preventing 'catch and release'. The House Homeland Security components call for resuming border wall construction, supporting local law enforcement, and bolstering Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel, resources, and technology."[6]
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in the United States, see this article. |
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- The Limit, Save, Grow Act: Heritage Action for America advocated for passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act which would "'[cap] spending at fiscal year 2022 levels and institut[e] programmatic cuts, reforms, and pro-growth policies that offset the increase in the debt ceiling.'"[7]
- Block Biden's Climate Regulation: The organization advocated against the Climate Disclosure Rule enacted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying it would "make it more expensive for businesses large and small to offer many of the products and services that make American life possible, including especially the production of reliable, affordable energy. It would give an immense advantage to 'green' companies and would pressure more companies to “go green”, despite the impacts on the consumer."[8]
- Stop Biden’s Title Ix Rule Change: "Instructing children to question their own gender and biology at young and developing ages is a radical new experiment in social engineering. It’s part of a political agenda that is being pushed by “woke” activists and is completely untethered from actual science."[9]
- Reject Biden's $3.5 Trillion Tax, Debt, and Spending Disaster: "[T]he Democrats’ reckless $3.5 trillion delivers a one-two knockout punch. This will slow the economy, kill jobs, and increase energy prices. Then they will expand the welfare state with unprecedented spending to get more and more Americans dependent on the government."[10]
- Reject Critical Race Theory: "Policymakers should reject the tenets of critical race theory and orient public policy toward rebuilding the institutions of family, education, and work for Americans of all racial backgrounds."[11]
- 'S.1 - Federal Election Takeover: Heritage Action advocated against HR 1 in the 117th Congress, known as the "For the People Act of 2021." Their website said, "The end goal of H.R. 1 / S. 1 is clear—to enshrine into law dubious electoral practices that enable and encourage fraudulent behavior, such as ballot harvesting, false voter registrations, duplicate voting, and ineligible voting."[12]
- Born-Alive Abortion Survivors: Heritage Action advocated for a bill that "would require that appropriate medical care be given to any child who survived an attempted abortion and that the child be transported and admitted to a hospital. Health care practitioners who violate these requirements would be subject to criminal penalties."[13]
Electoral activities and influence
2016 elections
Presidential Candidate Forum
The Heritage Action Presidential Candidate Forum is a town hall style forum for Republican presidential candidates hosted by Heritage Action for America. The first forum took place on September 18, 2015, in Greenville, S.C. All candidates polling at 1 percent or higher in August 2015 in the Real Clear Politics poll were invited to the forum, hosted by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) and Heritage Action's CEO Mike Needham.[14] As of August 3, 2015, over 5,000 people had signed up to attend the event.[15] The format involved all participating candidates "taking the stage one at a time to answer questions from Haley, Needham and conservative activists."[16] Heritage Action itself describes the questioning of candidates as "a wide-ranging, policy-focused discussion."[17]
2014 elections
Conservative Policy Summit
On February 10, 2014, Heritage Action held a Conservative Policy Summit. "We wanted to do something that highlights the fact that there's a bold, conservative reform agenda," explained Michael Needham, Heritage Action CEO. Among those invited to speak on various issues were: Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as well as Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho).[18]
2012 elections
Expenditures
According to OpenSecrets.org, the Heritage Foundation spent a total of $76,103 in the 2012 election cycle. The following is a breakdown of its contributions:[19]
- $75,545 in contributions to candidates
- $6,300 in contributions to leadership PACs
- $558 in contributions to parties
Top recipients
| Recipient | Total |
|---|---|
| Mitt Romney | $50,300 |
| Forward Together (PAC) | $5,000 |
| Mitch McConnell | $5,000 |
| Ted Cruz | $4,625 |
| George Allen | $3,500 |
| Dan Bongino | $2,500 |
| Rick Santorum | $2,300 |
| Evan Feinberg | $1,000 |
| Freedom Project (PAC) | $1,000 |
| John Barrasso | $500 |
| Richard Mourdock | $500 |
| Senate Conservatives Fund | $500 |
| Tony Strickland | $500 |
| Tommy Thompson | $500 |
| Heather Wilson | $500 |
Targeted candidates
| Candidate | Total | Stance |
|---|---|---|
| Tammy Duckworth | $86,526 | Against |
| Mark Critz | $27,057 | Against |
| Dan Maffei | $26,082 | Against |
| Joe Walsh | $24,876 | For |
| Barack Obama | $19,219 | Against |
| Keith Rothfus | $17,164 | For |
| Ann Marie Buerkle | $16,189 | For |
| Sherrod Brown | $5,508 | Against |
| Bob Casey | $4,241 | Against |
| Reid Ribble | $3,650 | For |
| Jamie Wall | $3,650 | Against |
| Tammy Baldwin | $2,184 | Against |
Notable endorsements
This section displays endorsements this organization made in elections within Ballotpedia's coverage scope.
Affiliations
Heritage Action for America is affiliated with the 501(c)(3) organization, Heritage Foundation. It was also affiliated with the Sentinel Action Fund a super PAC founded in 2022 that relaunched in 2023 as a separate organization.
Finances
The following is a breakdown of the Heritage Action for America's revenues and expenses from 2011 to 2023. The information comes from Internal Revenue Service reports.
| Year | Revenue | Expenses |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | $4,600,406 | $4,140,701 |
| 2012 | $5,930,423 | $4,177,693 |
| 2013 | $8,798,726 | $7,665,825 |
| 2014 | $10,516,720 | $9,610,034 |
| 2015 | $11,355,955 | $11,324,444 |
| 2016 | $11,987,038 | $12,154,755 |
| 2017 | $10,239,032 | $10,340,577 |
| 2018 | $11,320,527 | $10,995,704 |
| 2019 | $11,685,980 | $9,336,753 |
| 2020 | $15,897,373 | $15,564,208 |
| 2021 | $18,461,249 | $21,853,746 |
| 2022 | $20,906,989 | $20,985,466 |
| 2023 | $12,699,259 | $14,343,938 |
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for "Heritage + Action + for + America"
- All stories may not be relevant to this organization due to the nature of the search engine.
See also
External links
- Social media:
- Endorsements and ratings:
- Fact-checking:
- Financial:
- Media appearances:
- Media coverage:
Footnotes
- ↑ Heritage Action, "About," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Foundry, "Morning Bell: Heritage Action for America," accessed December 6, 2013
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Heritage Action for America, "Scorecard," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Heritage Action for America, "Sentinel," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: FY2025 Government Funding Deadline," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: The Secure the Border Act," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: The Limit, Save, Grow Act," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: Block Biden's Climate Regulation," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: Stop Biden’s Title Ix Rule Change," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Issue Toolkit: Reject Biden's $3.5 Trillion Tax, Debt, and Spending Disaster," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Reject Critical Race Theory," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "S.1 - Federal Election Takeover," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action for America, "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors," accessed August 6, 2025
- ↑ Heritage Action, "Heritage Action for America Presidential Forum," accessed September 1, 2015
- ↑ Greenville Online, "More than 5,000 register for GOP presidential forum so far," August 3, 2015
- ↑ WJCL News, "Haley: More than 10,000 have signed up for GOP forum," August 11, 2015
- ↑ Heritage Action, "Heritage Action Forum Criteria Memo," accessed September 1, 2015
- ↑ Politico, "Heritage Action gets it — loud and clear," February 9, 2014
- ↑ OpenSecrets, "Heritage Foundation," accessed August 6, 2025
